Month: August 2021

There are about a half dozen different movies pushed together to make The Mole People and as a whole they aren’t that interesting, all take too long in the hour and twenty minute runtime. There’s the introductory lecture on hollow earth theory, the adventuring archeologists bit, meeting up with the underground Sumerians, and finally hanging with actual mole people. It’s best advised to not ask too many questions about the Sumerians, because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Their costumes are nice and makes one wonder why men don’t wear dresses more often. I was surprised at the graphicness of some of the death scenes in a 1950s film. The mole people are the greatest part and not a lot of time is spent explaining anything about them. Their look makes it seem like someone found an extreme discount sale on a gross of rubber Creature from the Black Lagoon costumes. Spoiler Alert: when searching for ancient underground civilizations, don’t take the elderly and infirm. They’ll just hold you back and also rat you out as not being immortal.

So used I am to seeing Edward G Robinson as a crime boss, it took a few moments to get used to having him play a sensitive artist and emasculated husband. It is difficult to watch the world and the people around him torment him even when he occasionally is given a small win especially since the audience knows what’s going on behind his back. I wonder if at least the ending would have been kinder to him if it were a pre-Code film. I appreciate the complexity of Joan Bennett’s character, showing that she’s a victim falling for the wrong guy that is obviously going to lead to her demise while take the same advantages of Robinson’s character.

There is something entertaining in a film noir experiencing a criminal feeling the noose tightening around their neck. This is particularly true when the criminal is a crooked cop. Lee J Cobb carries this well, not giving two bits about anyone who might be in his way. Jane Wyatt as his murdering girlfriend goes far […]

Between this and the adaptations of Murder on the Orient Express that I’ve seen, I wonder if I should put some Agatha Christie on my To Read list. This one has a fairly similar structure to Clue though none of the madcap antics, which means it can’t possibly reach the status of that incredible film but is still an enjoyable story on its own. The entire ensemble worked well together with no one really trying to outshine anyone else. They kept me guessing as to who was being truthful and who was actually the murderer. The version on Amazon was unfortunately in color. For most of the film this didn’t matter, but was distracting during some of the low lit parts. It seems that some of this story, particularly the ending, were changed for the play version and most film adaptations take their cues from that. I’d love to see a version that is faithful to the book.

It’s really hard to believe that someone watched this and thought what the world needs is to make this film into a musical. I don’t normally enjoy colorizations of black and white films, but I don’t think Audrey Jr works without color, even if the colorization I watched did occasionally include people with grey hands. In comparing to the musical, this version also has a handful of minor characters that didn’t make it in the future adaptations. While they sometimes add interesting background, particularly in the case of Seymour’s mother, they do muddy the overall plot a bit and pull the attention away from Audrey Jr.

Here is another entry from the Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection that had spawned The Incredible Shrinking Man. This one is a more in the ‘It Came From Space’ genre. What sets this one apart, and also really made it most enjoyable for me, is that the monsters aren’t humanoid beings trying to take over the […]